UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #751
SEAVEY, BEVERLY

SEAVEY, Beverly (1951- )
Predoctoral Trainee, Department of Computer Sciences
At UW: 1976-

Interviewed: 	2006	
Interviewer: 	Sandy Pfahler
Length: 	1 hour, 15 minutes

Early education; MIT; Women’s movement; Graduate study at UW; Laboratory work; Waisman Center; Research.

First Interview Session (March 15, 2006): Digital File

Time	Keywords
00:00:00	[begin tape 1, side 1] Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction

00:00:21	Beverly Seavey grew up near Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  She grew up knowing she would be a scientist.  BS describes her public education.  Her father was an engineer while her mother stayed at home before later working as a librarian.  She describes her siblings.

00:02:28	A neighbor was a lab technician at the local hospital and often took BS there.

00:03:46	Elementary education.  Influential science teacher in seventh grade.

00:05:08	She talks about her high school education.  

00:06:10	BS attended MIT for her undergraduate education.  She decided to major in mathematics.

00:08:38	One professor forced students to choose between studies and striking in protest against the war.

00:10:30	Friends at MIT.

00:11:35	She does not recall receiving special encouragement by the MIT faculty because she was a woman.  She describes living in a women’s dormitory during her first year and the social restrictions placed upon them.  There was one woman for every eighteen men in her class.

00:14:39	She participated in consciousness raising groups and joined the SDS, which was dominated by men.  Interest in folk dancing.

00:17:00	Awareness of Title IX legislation.  She was on the women’s swimming team.

00:19:42	She had no career plans when she graduated from MIT.  She began going door-to-door to solicit contributions for Ecology Action.

00:20:38	A professor at Boston University Medical School employed BS to survey patients who had worked in an asbestos factory.

00:24:06	She took some courses and then applied to graduate school in molecular biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

00:26:15	She began her graduate career at UW in 1976.  

00:27:19	Biology seemed to be a women’s field; she felt that she immediately lost status by becoming a biologist.  She talks about difficulties in finding lab work.

00:30:57	BS eventually found a lab with Gary Craven. [end side 1; begin side 2] She continues to discuss her laboratory work.

00:34:34	She describes working in an otherwise all-male zoology lab.  She had poor relations with the lab professor and her male colleagues picked on her.  No professors supported her.  She learned a great deal from a postdoctoral student in zoology.

00:41:10	One of her committee members suggested that she drop out of the program.  She did so after another confrontation in the lab.

00:43:38	She looked for work and found a job in the Waisman Center.  BS describes Ruth Bleier.

00:47:40	Marion Namenwirth’s tenure lawsuit.  BS testified against her former advisor in this case.

00:48:30	After a year at the Waisman Center she applied for graduate study at UW in programming.  The Graduate School initially refused her application but she was accepted with the help of the Dean of Students.

00:52:16	She talks about the computer science department.

00:54:08	After receiving her master’s degree she went to work for Unisys in Philadelphia.  There she worked on an NIH project in biology.  Difficulties with her boss.

00:58:12	She wanted to do more work in computation biology and looked for jobs in Madison. She found a job creating a biochemistry database.  Pay issues.

01:03:44	[end tape 1; begin tape 2] Beverly Seavey continues to describe her work on a biochemistry database.  She felt she was treated like a second-class citizen.

01:07:40	She went back to graduate school in 1984.  Poor relations with her first advisor.

01:08:38	BS was a teaching assistant for a bio-informatics course.  New advisor.

01:09:16	She describes her marriage and divorce.

01:11:10	Although she considers her academic career to be “tenuous,” she is currently much happier and able to focus on her work.  She talks about her current research.

01:13:47	What she would have done differently.

01:14:39	She hopes to move back to the Boston area to work and care for her parents.

01:15:37	End of First Interview Session

End of Interview #751